Alphabet Songs

I just learned about Have Fun Teaching's alphabet songs and videos from Rowdy in Room 300. How did I not know about these before?

These would be terrific to use as a review in the beginning of first grade. The songs are catchy and I love that the videos include tracing the letter correctly in the air. I can't believe how many students form their letters incorrectly these days!!!! I am envisioning making up some motions to act out as we dance.

They also have counting and sight word videos! I was looking for a way to spice up our counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's practice!


And if you are a fellow blogger you can win a FREE Alphabet Videos download. You can learn about this giveaway by visiting Have Fun Teaching.

I need earplugs and FREEBIES!

Peeps, I have THE L-O-U-D-E-S-T class on the planet.

Since we finished our math series, we are rotating through some of our favorite games to review a variety of skills.

Bowling 10 Frames: A Number Sense Game

Place-Value Go Fish

Sweet Shop: A Coin Game

The Great Shape Race: A Plane and Solid Geometric Shape Game

Time Traveler

Puppy Patterns: A Spatial (Dot) Pattern Game

Prehistoric Place-Value

Counting Cows: 3 Skip Counting Games

Go Fish For Doubles *FREE*

Math Facts to use with Chutes and Ladders *FREE* click on the picture

And the favorite-Pet Shop *FREE*

I am seriously considering bringing in some ear plugs to get me through the remaining math periods but at least the kids are having fun while they learn.  Hope you enjoy the freebies. You can visit my TpT shop if you are interested in the others.


4.5 days and I am blogging instead of completing report cards. Bad teacher.

Border Tip

I have a quick tip for you today. Are you happy with how you store your bulletin board border? Wouldn't you like it to stay straight and be easy to access? Here is what I do:

All you need is a long closet, binder clips and these 3M Command hooks.

What do you think? Works great for me.

Common Core App

My district is getting on board the CCSS train. Are you on the train? Our train is slow moving. A select group of K-1 will explore the standards and make a curriculum map. Then, we will try it out this next year and help train everyone else the following year. I am part of this "Leadership Team" and learned about an app I thought I would share. Maybe you already know about if your train is more of speeding bullet rather than a locomotive?

This is a free CCSS app for smartphones or ipad. Just search your app store for Common Core Mastery Connect to find it. I think it will be helpful to have the new standards at my fingertips.

I also added a widget to my sidebar here on my blog. Do you see it over on the right? If you click on it, it will expand to look like the above picture. Cool, huh?

The Book Thief & Crayfish

One of my gems has a new nickname...The Book Thief. It used to be Plumber Bottom but I finally had a talk with his mother.   That talk went something like:

"Do you know P.B. hasn't worn underwear for weeks? NO? Well, I know this because we've all had many viewings of his bottom lately. I think a belt is in order.

He has been a challenge all year: constantly off-task, his items fill my June Box, his scissors have been confiscated due to inappropriate usage, no sense of remorse, defiant. I think I've mentioned before how rich with gems I am  this year.

But I digress, on to the new nickname...

This week, we took our classes into the Scholastic Book Fair during our library time. The kids can bring money to buy or browse and drag their parents back after school. I've never had a problem before but when the organizer came over and said she had taken a book away from someone she thought was trying to steal it, I just nodded my head and thought, "Of course. With this group why had I not prepared myself for that scenario?"

So she points to good ole P.B. and I watch him for a few minutes. Sure enough, the stinker gets another copy of the book, lays his red sweatshirt down on the carpet, and painstakingly wraps the book up and sticks it under his armpit! I'm not sure if I was more shocked that he had the audacity to try to steal a 2nd time or that he put so much effort into it! If he put half that much precision towards his writing perhaps it would look less like a preschooler's.

Needless to say, he was marched to the office where the principal called his parents and he wrote an apology to the book fair organizer (which I am certain she wasn't able to decipher.)

During PE the next hour he took his shoes off and ran around the track in socks which is a known NO NO. {I had to crack down on an "Oops, my shoe fell off" contagion that infected my class recently.} So, I benched him from participating. He kept getting off the bench, trying to play. I finally got really firm and said, "KEEP YOUR BOTTOM ON THE BENCH AND DO NOT TOUCH A JUMP ROPE!"

And do you know what he did?

 He looked right at me, stuck his foot out, and touched the jump rope! OH NO HE DIDN'T! The old me would have calmly said, "Well, that was a bad choice" but I am pretty sure that after this LLLOOONNNGGG year I looked more like this.

 I sent him right back to the principal and she wisely had him remain there until his mother came.

Every morning I give myself a pep talk. "Smile. Take deep breaths. Remember the sweeties."
One of those cuties wrote this book about teachers .

 

Are you reading between the lines?  

That is supposed to be me on the cover. I dyed my hair with a box for the first time ever. It was labeled light brown with blonde but there is a red hue, especially in the sun. I'm calling it strawberry brown. Did I just make up a new hair color?  I have had two former parents refer to me as a redhead and now this young lady chose her orange crayon. Perhaps it was a little more red than I thought?

Do I look exhausted or what? I am also a stress eater so I put weight back on, darn it!

On a more positive note, I did have fun crayfishing during Science Lab with my class on Friday. 

Of course, my class was the only one to have someone fall in the pond!

It was his birthday, too! He looked like he wasn't sure if he should be upset or not so I quickly whispered a secret to him, "Both my boys fell in the pond, too!" True fact. He grinned from ear to ear.

I leave you with this adorable video of this darling singing the crayfish song in hopes of catching one.

8 more days!!!!